ODTÜ METU
Designing for Turkey's top technical university
At METU, I have worked many big and small projects by assisting many departments, institutes, units, and offices within the university. A tight PR budget and bureaucratic chain-of-command were my biggest challenges.
Role: communication design
Core Design Team: 2 Designers (Idil Aba, Yasemin Oran), 1 Copywriter (Nokta Celik)
Duration: 2 years (Spring 2014 - Spring 2016)
About METU: Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey. It is one of the leading universities in the country in terms of research output. In addition to the main campus covering 11,100 acres of forested area in Ankara, METU has campuses in Erdemli/Turkey and Northern Cyprus.
Disclaimer: All presented artworks and used trademarks on this page are owned or licensed by METU.
Primer: METU Corporate Video 2017 (I haven't taken any part of making this video.)
My work was mainly guided by our copywriter from our parent office, and two other senior designers working in our three-person core unit. Our work got exposed to +100K stakeholders including the public via media outlets.
METU 60th Anniversary Logo Guideline
METU 60th Anniversary Logo Guideline
One of the biggest projects, I have worked on was designing communications and managing the visual identity of university's 60th anniversary. The logo designed by Dr. Hakan Gürsu. After jury's decision, I developed a logo-based identity guideline. The biggest challenge was creating an easily applicable system for the existing 12 contextual logos.
One of the biggest projects, I have worked on was designing communications and managing visual identity of university's 60th anniversary. The logo designed by Dr. Hakan Gürsu. After jury's decision, I developed a logo-based identity guideline. The biggest challenge was creating an easily applicable system among different existing logo alternatives.
I have designed both brand artifacts from letterheads, business card holders to scientific posters. All proposals produced in the 2016-2107.
The 2016 Spring Tree Planting Event
The second biggest project, I have worked on translates as "One Tree From You, One Forest From Us", which was a framework of forestation campaigns initiated by ODTÜ Development Foundation 2013-2016. The stretch goal of the campaign was successfully achieved as the 300-thousandth sapling was planted in METU forest. Please watch the video above to learn more.
Although the campaign had its own branding, the final planting event was after the campaign ended. I have used a container-based layout by designing the most text-heavy version first, the poster with event schedule and details. This way, it was easier to adapt it to lighter versions.
Similar to the other projects, I have also delivered medium specific visuals such as social media images (for Facebook, Twitter), environmental visuals such as podium backdrops, swallowtails.
In events like this, our aim was to communicate as early as possible. This often made us post alternative visuals to maintain our engagement levels in our social media channels until the event.
We wanted to celebrate the accomplished goal of planting the 300-thousandth tree with a logotype. It consists of the Turkish translation of "300 thousand trees" whose zero's and the breve of "ğ" forms a smiley.
During the event, I have been able to see my designs on our university management personnel such as our president, and his advisors.
On the other hand, many METU students attended the event and used additional materials that I have designed for the event such as event frames. See more photos at #300binagac in Instagram.
Library Signage Revision
During my last two weeks in METU, I have worked with our library management to update the signage before their building renovation. Our aim was to create a uniform and adaptable signage system with-in a small renovation budget.
I designed a signage system that uses mainly uses light content on dark backgrounds to blend with the building, which was our joint-decision with our university's architects. Using acrylic sheets was cost-effective to manufacture. I wanted to preserve the existing color language for "be silent" and "not allowed" signs.
An Accessible Campus Store: ODTUDEN.com.tr
I have also worked with our university store to add new items and update the existing collection to maintain the visual standards. We also launched the first online campus store in Turkey. To celebrate, I have designed a collection inspired by our shuttles: ring buses.
Ring souvenir collection quickly became the best seller of our online and physical stores. Then I have been asked to design more items such as notebooks or led lights, which were affordable additions to the collection.
Designing for Engagement on Social Media and metu.edu.tr
One of my routine duties at METU was to create visuals for social media and our homepage (metu.edu.tr). Since our homepage was using an old news-slider module, each article needed a visual in two languages and sizes.
Since we were able to adapt our visuals in different sizes, our visual language on different social media channels was mostly uniform.
Other Works
Other Works
During my time in METU, I have worked on many projects, which are mostly short projects for non-recurring events. I have designed many posters, invitations, book covers, page-setting, as well as e-mail bulletins and small scale branding works.
Questions?
Questions?
Questions?
I will be more than happy to share my METU experience in-person or via email, please feel free to ask me anything!